A Stradivarius violin known as the “Lady Blunt” sold for a record price of nearly $16 million, an amount equivalent to four times the previous record selling price for one of the rare violins. And better still, all of the proceeds will be donated to aid Japan’s relief efforts from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

The Nippon Music Foundation on Monday auctioned off the antique violin – one of some 600 string instruments made by the legendary Antonio Stradivari (1644 – 1737) that are still known to exist – to help raise funds for the victims of the earthquake and tsunami that ripped through Japan’s Tohoku region on March 11. It is the first time the Tokyo-based nonprofit organization sold an instrument in its care.

“While this violin was very important to our collection, the needs of our fellow Japanese people after the March 11 tragedy have proven that we all need to help, in any way we can. The donation will be put to immediate use on the ground in Japan,” said Kazuko Shiomi, president of the foundation, in a released statement on Monday. The proceeds of the sale will be donated to the earthquake and tsunami relief fund established by its parent organization, the Nippon Foundation.

The NMF owns over a dozen Stradivarius instruments and loans them to artists and aspiring musicians, who often cannot afford the instruments, free of charge. Current recipients include renowned violinists Kyoko Takezawa, Pinchas Zukerman and members of the Tokyo String Quartet.

An anonymous bidder in an online London auction hosted by Tarisio paid £ 9.8 million, or about $15.9 million, for the 1721 violin. The Lady Blunt last sold publicly in 1971 at Sotheby’s for £84,000, also a world record at the time. The violin is named after Lady Ann Blunt, a granddaughter of the poet Lord Byron and who owned it for 30 years. The Nippon Music Foundation acquired it in 2008 for an undisclosed amount and is judged to be in “nearly unused condition and is said to be the best - preserved Stradivarius violins in existence,” according to the foundation.

Comments (1 of 1)

The 20 minutes which I spent studying the "Lady Blunt" Stradivari in New York a couple of weeks before the sale were among the most memorable in my career as an instrument specialist. The violin is in such great perfect state of preservation that it becomes a time portal. It akes you back to 1721 much more than any other violin. It must have looked very similar when J.B. Vuillaume( 1798-1875) "The French Stradivari" first saw it during the 19th Century. There are other Strads in great state of preservation, and some will definitely break record prizes in the future. They will keep going up as the demand for a product of which only 550 examples exist, and only a very small percentage is available on the market at any given time. Certainly, this one was special in its own way, but they are all special....